Beware the casual fascism of John Key’s big brother

By
Martyn Bradbury
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13
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This week, Hank Wolfe, the professor of cyber security and forensics at the Information Science Department of Otago University’s School of Business told the Herald that new laws allowing spying on NZ citizens by the GCSB was a step towards totalitarianism.

I think we should heed the good Professor’s concerns. When the Prime Minister is trying to justify spying on NZers using WMDs as the excuse and when the Government of the day are attacking ideas as Communist and are passing laws criminalizing protests for oil corporations, a very clear impression is left that those in power see anyone questioning their failed economic policy is now an enemy of the state.

In such an environment of mounting tension, should we consider handing the intelligence apparatus of NZ even more search and surveillance powers above that which were given to the police only last year?

The paranoid language exhibited by National over Labour and the Greens new electricity policy indicate an immaturity I fear will be matched by those charged with looking for monsters and inevitably those monsters will turn out to be activists challenging National’s economic dogma.

These are not the times to expand state surveillance, it is the time to curtail it. The Police and SIS have been given vast new search and surveillance powers, they don’t need any more, let’s be told who the 88 NZers who have been illegally spied on were first before John Key and his childhood chum get to spy on any more citizens to determine for ourselves that those who are being spied on are actual threats and not just politically motivated spite.

Once we hand these civil liberties over, we never get them back.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Agree. We are witnessing a steady erosion of democracy as the vested interests of Big Money try desperately to hang to their power. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how many working poor still support the nats and think Key is a good PM. The turnout this Saturday will be telling. I’m hoping for a seismic shift, but somehow I don’t think it will happen yet.

  3. Once we hand these civil liberties over, we never get them back.

    Of course we can get them back – it just may take a revolution and the hanging of the scum who took them away.

  4. It’s weird how the present Government has so totally incorporated the worst aspects of the far right in the United States. In the United States there has been a steady progression to the present ultra conservatism over a matter of decades and it has a foundation in certain aspects of American culture that have been present for a century or more.
    But New Zealand has a much more liberal history based on egalitarianism and to suddenly be encumbered by such an extreme right wing government is actually quite odd even with the monetarist policies of the past 30 years. It inevitably makes you wonder just what is going on behind the scenes with this government.

    • Well there are some who say it was all started with an effective coup d’état led by business leaders and an inner group within the Labour Party in the 80s. As NZ has a unicameral system, it was seen as an easy country for change to be forced from above.
      The revolution continued under the Richardson clique, but stopped in its tracks with the advent of MMP, which the neoliberal cohort had not anticipated until it was too late.
      Key’s government is an attempt to further the revolution. Hence the otherwise weird situation where the 1% ACT vote wags National’s tail. The people supporting this government are ACT true believers.
      There is a very interesting documentary called ‘Someone Else’s Country’ made in 1996. What makes the documentary even more interesting is the fact it has been effectively silenced since its creation, with barely any coverage on TV.
      The title infers the truth of NZ’ history from 1980 to the present date and Nicky Hager’s ‘The Hollowmen’ continues with the theme.

    • And its even weirder that their supporters can’t even se that they ARE extreme in any way…. tax cuts for the rich, privatisation by stealth, education reforms, GST increase, increased powers of surveillance, criminalisation of protest activity, crony appointments, anti-union legislation…. (Stops typing, heaves massive sigh)

      • I get how the millionaires support them.
        I just don’t understand how those not in the top 10% can’t see through the spin.

      • Psychological Projection

        Psychological projection was first conceptualized by Sigmund Freud as a defence mechanism in which a person unconsciously rejects his or her own unacceptable attributes by ascribing them to objects or persons in the outside world instead.

        It’s why we’re suddenly getting a lot of BS about the USSR, Stalin etc despite the fact that it’s National and the rest of this government that are actually putting in place authoritarian/totalitarian policies.

  5. Jk is so far up Obamas bum its not funny any longer . We are implementing failed policies from America , Charter schools, 3 strikes bill, privatisation of anyhting and everything these policies didnt work for America. Good, stable and secure jobs and a decent education are crucial to improving peoples lives. We do not want to be a little America but we are under NATIONAL who are spiteful , nasty, mean, greedy and controlling. Despite Americas punitive measures like 3 strikes, death penalty in some states the crime rates havent dropped. I think it was in california the govenor ordered them to relase 50 thousand prisoners due to the inhuman conditions. Jk’s legacy = spying, lying, selling drilling,fracking, gay marriage , i cant remember and i cant recall , jobs for my mates, more nzers leave for Aussie, privatising education, and selling all the sliver and eradicating the welfare state wow! what a legacy.

  6. When did the definition of WMD change? If I remember correctly no WMDs were ever found in Iraq. Now to my utter amazment I see that the “Boston Marathon Bomber” has been charged with using WMD.
    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/wmd_rap_for_boston_bomber_90ONXwBFaUCOkIuqEiqs1O

    That was a “what the fuck?” moment for me. So now it seems George W. was right all along, because even a pressure cooker with gun powder is now apparently classed as a WMD. I’m sure they could have found any number of items in Iraq that fit that description (e.g. any hand grenade, mortar shells, IEDs, sticks of dynamite, suicide bombers etc). I guess our Dear Leader subscribes to this new definition that makes no sense whatsoever. So what are chemical, biological and nuclear weapons now called? Let me guess, UWMDs: Über Weapons of Mass Destruction.

  7. Every time someone says “The innocent will have nothing to fear…” my flesh crawls. That statement in itself is an attack on the presumption of innocence.

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